Hello all,

Planet Waves Astrology News is about ready to go. If you’re a subscriber, expect it at about 10 am Eastern Time. What I’ve done in the lead article is an analysis of how and why the United States is so divided, between the Pluralists and the Fundamentalists (also called the progressives and the conservatives).

This shows up in the election chart in a rare aspect — Saturn opposite Uranus. That is, Saturn is in Virgo (representing the Fundamentalists) and Uranus is in Pisces (representing the Pluralists), and precisely on Election Day, the two meet in a once-per-generation opposition. In recent years, Saturn has opposed two other outer planets: Pluto in 2001 (Sept. 11) and Neptune in 2005 (Katrina/Rita). Now it takes on Uranus, on what is arguably the most important day of the decade. The thing about Uranus is that it ALWAYS represents a surprise.

And what’s it gonna be?

I’ve also written a new weekly horoscope, This Week in 2011 and we have a new edition of Political Waves from Judith Gayle. It’s all in Planet Waves Astrology News, details at top left.

Later in the day we’ll post the link to the September monthly horoscope.

Dear Eric,

You know something of my past which has led me to today — and this space here is the only place in the wild webbed world that we live in where I felt I could express this inner storm.

Naomi from the Book of Blue. Photo by Eric Francis.

I’ve been having dreams, if you can call them that. Actually it’s more like I get into astral state, which is fairly easy for me to do — I chalk it up to my 1st house Neptune in Sagittarius.

But over the past few months I’ve had a few such astral projections which begin fairly “normally” but suddenly burst into a cataclysmic explosion of raw primal energy where all I want to do is fuck someone. Usually it is the first person I can see, not necessarily someone I would be attracted to in “real life,” and I will just grab him and basically open my legs “offering” myself in total submission. In fact, it is often someone who I would likely not fuck in real life. It’s a weird power trip along with wanting them to have their way with me, desire me, lust for me and want me to surrender to them.

While I am experiencing this, it’s almost as if my body is possessed and “I,” or my higher awareness, is watching this whole scenario play out in observation and detachment. I have the ability to experience all the emotional responses that my dream body is experiencing. There are feelings of guilt, shame, powerlessness, submission, throbbing lust, desire, and ecstasy as I watch this.

I am aware of every emotion and pulse, and I don’t try to control it or stop it. I am only an observer — removed but present and aware. These feelings aren’t just feelings; they are real in my physical flesh and blood body. I go into orgasmic states and I wake up fully aroused, throbbing and quivering.

Now although I am observing and not controlling or judging in my dream state, there is a knowledge that I am not in the “real world.” When I wake up in this heated up state I am confused and unsure. Is this right? What does this mean? Am I just a whore and slut, who would fuck anyone, or let anyone fuck her? In the middle of the street, in a crowded room with people watching, sometimes not being satisfied with even two or three men? Is this me? Is this what I am repressing? On a level of fucked up, just how fucked up would I call this? Is it really fucked up if these states at times give me more physical pleasure and ecstasy than a real encounter with a person?

I wonder if I am jaded. My relationship with men can well be seen in my chart. Although Venus-Mars-Pluto can call for intense relationships that often start off very spontaneously, passionate and sexual, they just as quickly want to be friends with no sex, and they never leave. I am friends with all of my exes. I don’t have an issue with sleeping with someone on the first night that I meet them if the chemistry is right. I did with my ex-husband with whom I had a long enough marriage. Let’s just say I have pretty good instincts.

But lately over the past few years I find I have refused more sex than I have had sex. Although I have a healthy sexual relationship with myself and masturbate every day, with my Sun on the descendant, I yearn to experience this within a real relationship. I want to explore my partner’s flesh like a divine landscape, discovering new territory with each encounter that takes us to that raw, earthy peak where we’re just exploding in rainbows. Yet I always maintain what turns me on is what’s between the ears, not their legs. I can start with a physical attraction but it is the elusive spiritual connection I seek.

I’ve been single (not celibate) for five years, going through a phase of time in my life where I just fucked I don’t know how many guys over a summer when I was going through my divorce in 2003. It is the closest thing I have experienced in “real life” to this dream experience which is why I wonder about this now. When I was having sex with these men, I knew exactly what I was doing. I knew they wanted to fuck me, and I just wanted to be fucked, to feel good about myself, to feel like a woman, to feel desirable, and more so just needed “physical” contact.

Of course I could only allow this to happen when I was exceptionally inebriated. But even then I was VERY aware of what I was doing; it was kind of like my soul checked out and was watching my body take over to fulfill her needs. I have never felt guilty about this, although I know it isn’t ever something I knew I had in me. When I was going through it, that was what my body needed.

Years later, I have grown and matured in ways that surprise me. For the past few years my sexual partner has primarily been myself. Not for a lack of options, but rather not enough depth of connection. With these recent eclipses, I have learned that I don’t need intensity and drama to have a fulfilling connection. It can flow, be rich, soft, sensual, earthy, healing, soothing, deep, sexual and yet a friendship. I’m more content in ways that I cannot explain. There is a quiet stillness within me most of the time. There is also a sadness that comes from having an overflow of raw primal life force with no one to ‘physically’ channel to on a regular basis.

These “dreams” have me a little confused and intrigued, which hasn’t actually happened since the eclipses. Since this is a New Moon in my 5th house of sexuality — I want to understand this and not reject it. Is this Vesta? Is this Lilith? Is this my Venus-Mars-Eris conjunction? Is this really me? Is this right? Is this true? I want to understand so I can make peace with it. I am hoping you will be able to give me your astrological insight on this subject. Because if you can’t I don’t know who else can.

– some call me Jezebel

Dear Jezebel:

I suggest you make some distinctions between your feelings and your judgments about them. You, and the rest of us, that is — this is something we all need to learn. Any time we’re discussing or considering sex, real or symbolic, we need to remember that we have next to no knowledge of what our organic sexuality really is beneath all the judgments that have been heaped on us — that is, unless we actually feel it (and that can bring conflict). To me it feels like you’re feeling. And in the next breath, judging yourself for doing so.

I suggest you print out your letter and using two different-colored highlighters, mark off everything that’s stated as a fact in one color, and everything that is an assessment of that fact in another color. Here is an example.

But lately over the past few months I’ve had a few such astral projections which begin fairly “normally” but suddenly burst into a cataclysmic explosion of raw primal energy where all I want to do is fuck someone. Usually it is the first person I can see, not necessarily someone I would be attracted to in “real life,” and I will just grab him and basically open my legs “offering” myself in total submission. In fact, it is often someone who I would likely not fuck in real life. It’s a weird power trip along with wanting them to have their way with me, desire me, lust for me and want me to surrender to them.

You are doing great with the facts until this statement: It’s a weird power trip along with wanting them to have their way with me, desire me, lust for me and want me to surrender to them.

I think this one statement basically sums up your whole dilemma. And as your statement above develops, you descend from your description of your primal feelings, your unfettered desire for completion and your willingness not only to say yes but to BE yes…into a lot of ideas about relationships, along with numerous doubts about what you’re experiencing. In one moment you are the Sun shining. In another you are the clouds obscuring the Sun.

Another thing I notice is that you’re confusing dreams or astral experiences and physical reality. I think we could make some meaningful comparisons, but for our basic purposes here, a dream is a dream and physical reality is physical reality. You seem to be treating the events of the astral plane as if they have their full consequences in physical reality.

Let’s address just the dream sequence. I am partial to the Gestalt dream method, which is based on the idea that everything in the dream is a manifestation of your own psyche. That’s a useful place to draw the boundary in terms of what material you own in a dream — all of it. Even if a dream seems to take you “beyond yourself” (i.e., an astral experience, whatever that is) for the sake of discussion, we can treat it as a dream of being taken beyond yourself.

Based on this theory, your dream says you are seeking self-completion and you see the world as a means of doing so, which it is. That self-completion comes from wanting to give yourself to life and wanting to be penetrated by your experiences — these things being choices that you make based on what you actually want. So here you have an energetic model of wanting something for yourself and then actually giving it to yourself.

You describe wanting to fuck people you would not normally fuck in real life; the suggestion here is that you are someone different than you imagined, and are perfectly willing to accept that person; you want experiences different than you imagined you would have — but you are but equally (and rather powerfully) yourself.

The rest, all of it — everything else you say you want in the subsequent paragraphs in your letter, all your notions of relationships, are all basically a collection of moralisms, judgments and attempts to control your primal energy before it has a chance to express itself; that is, before you take the chance to express yourself.

The essence of the dream to me is the doubt with which you awaken. That is the contrast; that is the wall you are coming up against in your life. You feel alive, and taste fulfillment; then you doubt yourself. I suggest you begin to dismantle this rather damning psychic apparatus so that you finally have a chance to express yourself freely, through sex or however else you might do it.

Here are two variants on the same statement, translated into this basic method. I suggest you read the statements out loud to yourself and see how they feel.

Original: I suddenly burst into a cataclysmic explosion of raw primal energy where all I want to do is fuck someone. Usually it is the first person I can see, not necessarily someone I would be attracted to in “real life,” and I will just grab him and basically open my legs “offering” myself in total submission. In fact, it is often someone who I would likely not fuck in real life. It’s a weird power trip along with wanting them to have their way with me, desire me, lust for me and want me to surrender to them.

Revised: I suddenly burst into a cataclysmic explosion of raw primal energy where all I want to do is fuck myself. Usually it is the first version of myself that I can see, not necessarily some aspect of myself that I would be attracted to in “real life,” and I will just grab myself and basically open my legs “offering” myself in total submission. In fact, it is often an idea about myself who I would likely not fuck in real life. It’s a weird power trip along with wanting myself to have my way with me, desire me, lust for me and want me to surrender to myself.

You get what I mean? So who is making you being you into a power struggle?

Yours & truly,

Technorati Tags: Astrology, Eric Francis, Planet Waves, Sexuality

Dear Friend and Reader:

Eyes on Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin’s reported birth time: 4:40 pm, Sandpoint, Idaho, Feb. 11, 1964. The source is the Starlight News, and I’m in the process of tracking down the pedigree. I trust the data because the chart works. To sum up: What we are witnessing right now is the Neptune Effect, one reality melting away and becoming another. Looked at another way, it’s the astrological equivalent of a hurricane semi-canceling the Republican National Convention (fortunately for them, Gustav and the holiday weekend served as a distraction from the spattering of Sarah Palin stories).

[News quiz: what was the interesting thing happening in the days before Hurricane Katrina? Answer: back when the Iraq war was still considered news, Iraq was spiraling into a new level of chaos, we had reached the 2,000 soldier death mark, and Republicans were accused of waging a witch hunt against climate change scientists. From this, it does not seem so impressive, particularly given how what happened to New Orleans overshadowed anything that developing right before -- but that last week of August 2005 was quite a week.]

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin signs one of the three budget bills into law in Anchorage, Alaska, Friday, June 29, 2007. Photo by Al Grillo, AP.

First a reply to everyone who is saying that Sarah Palin does not matter; that only John McCain matters because he’s the real candidate.

Not so fast. The VP is the stand-in for the president. McCain has cancer, and in any other slightly less surreal time in history that would disqualify him from even being considered for commander in chief.

He would also be 72 when he assumes office, the oldest man in history to be sworn in (he beats Reagan by three years). This makes the vice president more important in this particular election. Note that Republican administrations have a history of the vice president being de facto prez.

For example, George H. W. serving “under” an ailing Reagan; and Dick Cheney “under” a brutally incompetent George W. She would not necessarily be McCain’s boss; McCain’s boss would be her boss.

In a matter of hours from her nomination, Palin was a liability. Aside from the fact that McCain had met her once before selecting her, nobody else besides Alaskans and Laura Bush had heard of her and the barrage has been nonstop. Note, this is what public involvement in the political process feels like. This is the rhubarb; the hue and cry; the public rumbling. Love it or watch CNN.

She is being trashed on the values that she supposedly espouses the most dearly — the sanctity of the family; sexual abstinence; honesty and integrity. We have a candidate who has characteristically run on a program of social piety revealed as someone whose family is no different than, well, dang — she’s just like us. Only I don’t throw my own kid under a bus for political purposes, and I don’t get to tell you when you can and can’t go to what doctor. I don’t legislate what your kids can and cannot know about their own bodies; that’s Sarah’s presumed job. She is living proof of how poorly abstinence only sex indoctrination works and she is thus a religious huckster. Only human of course…

Looking at her natal chart, we get Leo rising (our gorgeous beaming beauty queen, hotter at 44 than she was at 18) and that puts Aquarius on the 7th house. Aquarius is the sign with the most progressive feel, irrespective of what may be going on inside (as usual & with all the signs, there are a lot of possibilities). The 7th is the house that you could call the zone of projection (”we don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are”) or it’s the house of taking the public and putting it on like a mask. Either way, you project your 7th house. It is not the “real you” — that’s the job of the ascendant and its ruler. It’s specifically what you project outward.

This is the house of that pseudo-populist Aquarius Sun, Mars and Saturn. The Sun IS her ascendant ruler and this tells me she has boundary issues with the public; like any good performer, she blurs the distinction between she and us. Square her natal Neptune, mega ditto that, but the phenomenon involves what she tells herself. Who knows, this chart could be the chart of someone with impeccable integrity. Unfortunately that does not check out.

In the Big Sky; as we sit here, the Sun is now moving into an exact lineup with Saturn, in Virgo (this is an astrological event, happening Monday through Wednesday, and which happens once a year affecting all of us). Normally this is the kind of thing that would be “good for the government” and the discussion that is happening certainly seems to qualify. I am appreciating how detailed it is; Virgo is indeed about those annoying little bits of data that sometimes do add up to something. Sun-Saturn is about setting limits. That is another theme of the week, a limit on bullshit.

Palin herself is in a Moment of Astrology. Neptune, a very slow planet, is retrograding exactly over her Sun. Exactly as in her Sun is at 22 Aquarius 20 and Neptune is currently retrograde at 22 Aquarius 23. That is to say, Neptune is applying into a to-the-arc-minute conjunction to her Sun and it will be aligned most precisely on Thursday (though in retrospect it’s so powerful we would say it had full impact all year,not just this week). This is a transit so closely aligned and so rare that it’s the kind that astrologers use to backtrack and figure out the time a person is born; so this gleaming little event helps establish the accuracy of the chart.

I personally don’t think that she’s gonna actually get nominated, but this would suggest that one way or the other she is pretty washed up. We shall see what comes out in that wash, however — it’s been an interesting load already.

Steve Bergstein has posted a new entry to his Planet Waves blog, Psychsound. It’s called Picking Up the Pieces, and looks at how hard it is to run for president during a war. Also this edition of Talking Points Memo focusing on Ms. Palin is a short, spicy read.

Technorati Tags: Astrology, Campaign '08, Eric Francis, planetwaves, Republican, Sarah Palin

Note, there is a diary posted on Daily Kos with a stunning revelation of BabyGate. Apparently Sarah Palin kept her pregnancy secret from her entire staff, and was never actually photographed pregnant. I don’t mean nudes! I mean at the numerous public appearances made by a governor. I say apparently…I would be happy to publish a photo of a recently pregnant Mrs. Palin if anyone can cowboy one up. Thanks, Jamie, for this link.

This was sent by Joan. Don’t worry, I don’t think it’s real, just hilarious.

One of my blogger friends, a real blogger, the political kind, wrote to me at about midnight last night and suggested that I follow the Sarah Palin story from hour to hour. I’m home today writing horoscopes and I lapsed in my tracking of the news. In that time, an interesting story popped out of the ethers: Sarah Palin’s 17-year-old-daughter Bristol is pregnant. This apparently came out when the elder Ms. Palin was accused of faking the birth of her latest child to cover for her daughter. No, they are both in the family way.

Now, you may be thinking, why should we care? It’s their business. Here is why. So much of Republican “domestic policy” is so domestic that it goes right into the bedroom. That is the basis of it. If you could make a law that said politics had to stay off of our bodies, there would be no domestic platform.

Let’s see, it all starts with abstinence-only sex indoctrination, which makes a moral issue out of sex. No, it’s not about morality, it’s a biological and social issue. Then there is the high-pri agenda item of getting a justice on the Supreme Court who is willing to overturn Roe vs Wade, the landmark decision granting women the right to privacy, and the corresponding right to choose an abortion if that’s what your values system allows.

Certainly, it would not be any of your business what Bristol Palen and her family do about her pregnancy. Why should your pregnancy be any business of theirs?

[Note, CNN is reporting that Palin said when running for governor in 2006 that she would support funding for abstinence-only education in schools, according to Eagle Forum Alaska, a conservative group that sent a questionnaire asking gubernatorial candidates their views on a range of issues.]

Technorati Tags: Astrology, bristol palen, Eric Francis, planetwaves, Republican, Sarah Palin

Dear Friend and Reader:

Does anyone remember the old joke that ends with the punchline (spoken in an old-world Jewish accent), “A flood? How do you make a flood?”

Hurricane Gustav passes through Haiti and moves on to Jamaica. Photo courtesy of Scientific American.

The flood known as Hurricane Gustav is upon us, and the GOP has basically canceled its convention to show that the boys are on the job, helping out the Red Cross and not fucking up their FEMA plans. The guys have sent their wives to the convention center, turning it into the Republican Ladies’ Auxiliary. “Brownie” is sitting in his living room, watching the thing pound New Orleans and points south, wishing he could be part of the action — now, of course, that FEMA has to actually do something.

I am someone whose belief system and file cabinet include room for weather control weapons. I know personally the reporter who, in the early 1970s, did a piece for Long Island Newsday called “A Weather Arsenal,” about the use of weather weapons during the Vietnam War. I was reminded of this by a friendly reader who’s been sending me little notes all weekend about how she thinks that Gustav is an artificial storm and do I think she’s a nut?

I might, if I didn’t know about the Weather Arsenal. The thing about that thing is that it runs on computers. You need ion rays or whatever, and I am sure it helps a lot if the ocean is warm, but computers are the key and man, have we got computers these days. At a buck a byte (the going rate for memory at one time), my Mac laptop would have cost about a quarter trillion dollars in 1950. So now there is basically no limit.

So when contemplating the cancellation of the Republican National Convention, and the fact that (after a huge gaff of hiring Sarah Palin to be candidate for vice president before anybody had actually checked her background — but Laura Bush, at least, met her and liked her) I am thinking of it three ways. One it’s just a hurricane during hurricane season on a slightly warmer planet than we’ve had for a while. Second is if this is just nature getting poetic justice and allowing us a moment to remember just what a motley bunch of fools have been in charge (we all remember Bush not coming back from vacation during Katrina and so on). Three is if Karl Rove sent a text up to the weather control station in Alaska that said something like, “Give me a Cat 4, prime time.”

Something to think about before we get to your week-ahead aspects, interpreted by Genevieve Salerno, calculated by Tracy Delaney at Serennu.com, and edited by yours and truly,

We are still in the early waxing phase of the Moon; tonight will be the third night of the cycle and what many cultures call the New Moon. New Moons are usually pretty helpful at creating patterns. Look around your email outbox to see the patterns you are creating.

1 Monday: Moon entered Libra at 7:44 am EDT. Venus sextiles Centaur planet Hylonome, putting deeper feelings within reach.

Genevieve writes, “Sometimes it’s easier to remove ourselves from a situation where we could use our empathy, because the moment we use it, we will be faced with the tremendous wall of grief that envelopes our communities. This wall is caused by the grief, and deep feelings, that everyone puts off. As a result, it is a lot like laundry you throw on the floor and let pile up. The Romantic art movement of the 1800s touched on the idea of sadness as an important vehicle for accessing the sublime. The Venus-Hylonome aspect today speaks to us about positive ways to use our private sadnesses creatively. The purpose of creation is to share it, and creation relies heavily on feeling. Do not be afraid to aspect that wellspring of emotion, though it might appear to be deep and dark. Even black grapes taste sweet.”

2 Tuesday: Sun squares Pallas in Gemini, a perfect little meme for the Non-Republican National Convention. The boys are flying in the face of politics, hoping for the best. Mercury sextiles Ceres, which is great for recipe collectors. Psyche trines Varuna, which should ease the mental trauma inflicted on everyone sitting in their nice dry living room as they watch the flood waters rise in the Gulf Coast. Juno squares Eros, which asks the question, “Is getting married the best way to get a lot of sex?”

Genevieve writes, “It is always a good idea to examine and re-examine your motives and your conduct. When you have two aspects like the Sun-Pallas and Juno-Eros, you have a diagram of what can happen when a person prefers to remain aloof by the processes of relationship that go on around them. Honor plays an important role in many of the decisions we make as far as our friendships and love-ships are concerned, and honor can be a strength, or a serious disadvantage, if used without discernment. Put another way, be wary of finding yourself on either end of a martyr-user, or good-evil scenario. Does the conduct in this situation reflect what you believe in?”

3 Wednesday: Moon enters Scorpio at 4:02 pm EDT. Sun squares Chaos. Uranus opposes Logos in Virgo. Logos is a binary TNO orbiting beyond Pluto. It has a counterpart called Zoe. Together I think that the two are the astrological stand-in for all issues related to the soul of technology and what technology does to our soul. Have you noticed that the more we use the Internet, the more we bring our soul energy into this dimension that used to be called Cyberspace? I know you wouldn’t know it from most Facebook pages, but you might know it from the way Facebook users bring their sense of self into the digital realm. This is true of all of us who invest psychic energy into the technosphere, whether we recognize it or not.

4 Thursday: Sun conjoins Saturn and trines Jupiter, a very nice setup that should open a lot of doors. Sun squares Ixion in Sagittarius, which is suggesting that we not be too frivolous or lacking in moral courage when we use those opportunities. Material wealth is always involved with the Earth signs since all wealth comes from the Earth (in the words of the late multimillionaire/record impresario Alfred Schweitzman). Genevieve writes, “When we look at money as a means instead of an end, we force ourselves to restructure our values and find a different set of goals, and we come a step closer to freeing ourselves from the grip of never feeling like we have enough. This aspect denotes a time for just such a conversation to have with ourselves.”

5 Friday: Venus in Libra sesquiquadrate Neptune in Aquarius. Mars trine Chaos. Pallas conjunct Chaos. Oh this sounds like dandy astrology for politics by chaos. Borrowing a phrase from Book of Blue, someone out there in the political sphere seems like they plan to make a mess and clean it up.

6 Saturday: Moon enters Sagittarius at 3:11 am EDT. Mars trine Nessus in Aquarius retrograde. Pallas trine Nessus. I would say this sounds evil, but I know better.

7 Sunday: Mars in Libra squares Jupiter in Capricorn, which is about, you know, a crusade of some kind. Stand up and get ready to be offended by the viewpoint of your choice. Mercury trine Chaos — let it pour. Virgo Sun trine Vesta in Taurus, which is a friendly reminder how much of sex is service, and how we need to take self-service in erotic relationships to a fully conscious level. If you need something, ask for it. Maybe someone will say yes, maybe they will say no; at least you have a chance to get your needs met (a value in itself, in this world) and either way, you will know where you stand. Psyche opposite Sedna. Keep your mind open in hell.

Technorati Tags: Astrology, Eric Francis, gustav, Planet Waves, republican convention, weather control